


we'll stop fighting once your circuit board's igniting

by derogatory



Category: Runaways (Comics)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-28
Updated: 2015-11-28
Packaged: 2018-05-03 16:42:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5298701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/derogatory/pseuds/derogatory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>three of Victor's favorite fake memories (and one that's 100% real)</p>
            </blockquote>





	we'll stop fighting once your circuit board's igniting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [belligerentReverie (Gallyrat)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gallyrat/gifts).



i.  
Even when he was a kid, or during his false memories of being a kid, Victor wasn't entirely sure his only memory of his father was real. Now he knows it wasn't, that the picture his mom prized was one of a stranger, someone Marianella probably never even knew, and that it wasn't grief that kept her from telling him anything about his dad, but that there was never anything to say. 

But in the back of his mind, he has a memory of a man, tall and warm, an arm around his mother, and a family he can never have back because it never existed to begin with.

 

 

ii.  
Until he was ten, he'd cry any time Marianella left him to go to work. Whether it was with the woman next door who looked after him, or on the first day of school, or even when his mother would try to go to the store at the end of the road for toilet paper. Victor would latch onto her and cry.

"Your heart was broken," she sighs, reminiscing over a rare dinner together. "You are not meant to be without me." Victor rolls his eyes, gently setting the stacked dishes in the sink, as she adds, "I'd never leave you alone if I could, mijo."

"You're gonna be late, mom," he chides, reaching for her glass. She pulls him close instead and kisses him on his forehead.

"What's in New York?" she says, "Cold, expensive and you'll break both our hearts." 

He squirms away and Marianella hurriedly slips into her shoes, sweeping Victor back into her arms before she leaves for work. Victor lingers at the door when she goes, tethered to the spot.

 

 

iii.  
Cyborgs can't get sick, so it's clear from early on that those memories were never real.

Even if he could get sick, it's wasn't as if Marianella could have afforded to miss work, sitting at the edge of his bed, running a hand through his hair. But Victor remembers it all the same, those memories as blinding in their affection as they are in their inaccuracies.

And something about the lack of accuracy in the deception is what makes him the angriest- more angry at his mom than at Ultron. Before he remembers the ashes her corpse had left and the graves the Runaways dug for their own parents.

 

 

iv.  
"Must suck," Gert mutters. "Trying to figure out memories that are and aren't real."

Victor shrugs, picking at the growing holes in the knees of his jeans. "I think I've got the timeline right, when the fake ones stop and the real ones start." He trails off, flexing his fingers, imaging the wiring and circuitry beneath them. Gert's eyes are trained on him.

"Yep, sounds super sucky," she replies at last, stretching her legs out over the steps. Leapfrog's clicks and settling noises echo in the cavernous hideout, in a space so large that it makes even her driest commentary seem soft and quiet. "This is real, though. Real and sucky. We got you hit with both." She watches Vic leans over his knees and sigh. "You want me to leave you alone?"

"No, it's fine," he says, adding with a grimace in her direction. "You sure _you_ wanna be here? I mean, you guys said future me kills you--"

"That skinny Avenger is not me," she cuts him off with a scoff, "Besides, that's a future where we didn't forcibly recruit you, it's like, not even gonna happen like that anymore." She rolls her shoulders and adds proudly, "Here with the Runaways, we're all about going against our parents' grand plans for us." She pauses for effect, sneaking a glance down at the cyborg. "So, how's that for a team pitch? You sold?"

Victor straightens up so quick his skull nearly collides with her chin-- easy, buddy, she says. "You'd let me join your team?" 

Gert's mouth twists at the question, chewing it over.

"There's a probationary period, I think," she admits. "We don't exactly meet kids with mega evil parents everyday. We'll play it by ear."

"And if I turn out evil?"

"Yeah, Chase and Nico handle the deets when it comes to betrayal." She shrugs. "Karolina and I-- the more non-combative members-- can maybe give you the benefit of the doubt." 

Victor watches her carefully, trying to suss out the deception, the trap. He wonders if that's a failsafe Ultron programmed, this need to double check anyone else for lies while he lives one of his own. He wonders if it's just his own shattered sense of trust, dismantled scrap metal between him and the rest of the world.

"Molly's waiting to see if you'll shoot fireworks from your fingers before she weighs in." Gert grins, wide and wild.

"Do you want me on the team?"

"I don't know," she says after a thoughtful pause. "But I want you out there a hell of a lot less." Victor nods in grim agreement, thoughts of Ultron's override washing over him. "Also, Old Lace digs you," she adds. "But she's easily impressed, so don't get a big head about it." 

Victor looks grateful for half a second before the crippling self-doubt and nerves that dictated his life even before the super villain dad revelation kick in. With a groan, he mutters something about not taking this seriously, and it's all screwed up. Gert sighs, losing track because she took German instead of Spanish, but can hear the anxiety in his tone.

"Okay, robo-amigo, try to relax," she mutters. He's fit to be freaking out, but at least not crying (yet.) After a few false starts, she hesitantly sets a hand between his shoulder blades. She brings her face close, and Victor lifts his head to peer back. She whispers, "Come on. We'll take care of you." Gert smiles again, all teeth, eyes mirroring it behind her glasses. "One way or another, right?"

Out of every memory that's programmed deep into the recesses of his brain, real or fake, Victor thinks this is one he wants to erase the most. Molly sobs as he blinks through sweat and tears, while he and Xavin keep digging Gert's shallow grave.


End file.
